Broken
by SVU-Obsessed
Summary: One shot inspired by Logan's speech about being in Iraq. What happens when you've been smashed and broken? And how do you keep the people you care about from becoming as damaged as you?


A little one-shot that came to me after Logan talking to Lulu about the war in Tuesday's episode. It's a little short, and maybe a little heavy, but I wanted to get something out there about PTSD (even though I never mention it by name). Reviews are very greatly appreciated!!

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Damaged. Broken. Smashed into a million pieces and haphazardly thrown back together. Barely breathing. Minimally alive. Broken worked best though. I was broken.

Once I knew she was asleep, I got out of bed and pulled my jeans and shirt back on. I never slept naked or in pyjamas or any other crap like that. You had to be ready to go at all times, you couldn't waste time. When you needed to go, you needed to go. On good nights I would take my socks off, but my gun would always be in my nightstand.

_Fight or flight._

I flipped on the light switch and grabbed a beer out of the fridge. The light terrified me, almost as much as the darkness did. At least in the light you could see when someone was coming at you. In the darkness, there was ambush. I sat down on the couch and wrapped my hand around the beer bottle without taking a sip.

I didn't sleep. I had already told her that I didn't sleep. It wasn't because I wasn't tired. It wasn't even because I was scared of being killed in my sleep. It was a matter of self preservation. I was tired, but my body wouldn't let me sleep. Because when I sleep, I dream. And when I dream, it's the same nightmares. I don't care about the fear of dying, or the memories of violence. No, that wasn't the problem. It was the faces and the smells and the sounds. The ones that were with me all day anyways, but the ones that I absolutely had no way of escaping when I was sleeping. Awake, I was in control. At least a bit. Sleeping, I had no control whatsoever.

In the bed, I heard Lulu stir. I considered just leaving, but it didn't seem right. None of it seemed right. She needed to understand how bad I was for her, how broken I was. It wasn't that I didn't like her, didn't care for her. It was the opposite. I did, and therefore she needed to be protected from me.

I had joined the army to help pay for med school, but I liked the feeling it gave me when I first enlisted. I felt like I was doing the right thing for the first time in my life. When girls heard army, they heard other things. Honour. Pension. Money. Bravery. It gave me discipline for the first time in my life. I was actually under the impression that I was doing something right with my life. And then I was deployed to Iraq. The details, the names and numbers, none of that really matters to me. It's moments, moments that could have been moments from any given day. It's the little things that haunt me.

No one goes into the army thinking that they're going to come home the way I did. No one goes in thinking that they're going to be broken and changed. No one goes in thinking that when they go back they're going to need the drugs or the alcohol that was readily available to us there just to make it through the day.

The funny thing is that I didn't have a problem talking about it. I mean, what I would say, anyways. It was like I was telling a story. I didn't have to think, I didn't have to make any kind of emotional connection to my words. So it was easy for people to believe that I was fine. But when I thought about it, when I couldn't escape my own thoughts, it was more than I could take. I knew of two guys who I'd been with in Iraq who'd already gotten divorced because their wives couldn't take the change in them. Three who had killed themselves. There were night when I felt like I was about to lose it, nights when things got so bad that I told myself the next morning I would finally call one of those numbers they had given us when we had come back to the states, if we needed help. But then morning came, and it didn't seem nearly as bad.

"Why are you up?" I looked up to find Lulu with my sheet wrapped around her. She tucked the end she was holding onto into the sheet, and took a sat beside me.

"Couldn't sleep," I said softly. She pulled her legs up under her, and curled herself into me, resting her head gently on my shoulder. I knew I had to tell her to get off. To go. That it was best for her. That it's what she needed to do to escape from me in one piece, but I couldn't. Not yet.

She took my left hand and pulled it towards her. She saw the sunburst shaped scar that had formed after I had accidentally crushed my beer bottle. I hadn't gotten stitches for it, and it had healed with a bumpy scar. She brought her fingers to it and gently traced the outline. I closed my eyes and inhaled deeply. Like I said, I'd been broken into a million pieces. I'd been stuck back together, but there were cracks everywhere, and I had no idea when one of those cracks would break open again.

Somehow, with Lulu tracing my scar, it didn't feel like I was unfixable.

"What happened there?" she asked softly. She was sleepy and her cheeks were flushed. She looked innocent.

God she was beautiful.

"Nothing," I told her, closing my hand around hers. I couldn't do this. I couldn't let her get involved with someone like me. I had to tell her. I _had_ to tell her.

She nuzzled herself against my neck. Her chest rose and fell against me. Her breath on my neck, warm, reminded me that she was alive. That I was alive. How was I supposed to stop this? The first sign of life I'd had since I came back, and I was supposed to push her away? With my other hand, I tucked her hair back behind her ear, then trailed down to her chest until I could feel her heart beating. She tilted her head upwards until her big blue eyes were staring at me through her thick eyelashes. Wanting. Waiting.

_Bring me to life._

She kissed me, soft and slow. I didn't feel broken. I didn't feel damaged. I don't know what the hell she did to me but somehow it all didn't seem so bad when she kissed me.

"Lulu," I whispered, pulling back. "No. We can't."

Her eyes changed. Hurt. "That's not what you were saying an hour ago."

I stood up. I had to get distance, I had to stay away from her. Because if I came any closer, I might touch her again. And if I did that, all my self control would be out the window.

She deserved better. So much better.

"Lulu, I'm sorry. I just can't. . . I can't get involved with you."

She swallowed hard and stood up. "I see," she said softly. "I'm just going to go." She quickly pulled on her jeans under the sheet she had wrapped around her, tugged her shirt over her head, and pushed past me.

"It's not what you think."

She stopped with her hand on the door and turned around slowly. Her eyes were blazing, tears burning behind them.

"Then what is it?"

"You deserve better than me."

"Oh, okay," she laughed sarcastically. "But only after I slept with you right?"

"It wasn't about that."

"Then what was it about?"

"Lulu, I'm way more screwed up than you think. If you get involved with me. . ." I swallowed hard. I'd never said the words out loud before. "If you get involved with me, you're going to end up just as broken as I am."

She looked at me for a minute, then before I had a chance to understand what she was thinking, she left and slammed the door behind her. I took a couple of deep breaths, the picked up the beer bottle and hurled it against the wall and screamed.

I collapsed down on the couch and stared straight ahead. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't think. Finally, I got up and went to check out where I had thrown the beer bottle. There was a dent in the wall where I'd had hit the wall. I looked down at the bottle.

_Broken_.


End file.
